Cyberwing
Platform: Commodore 64
Region: pal
Controller: joy
Genre: Shoot 'em Up, Vertical
Gametype: Undefined
Developer: Cosine Systems
Publisher: CronoSoft
Players: 1
Programmer: Jason Kelk (TMR/Cosine)
Musician: Sean Connolly & Marc François
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An unknown alien invasion force has invaded your Galaxy and have ransacked it leaving a trail of destruction through five Colony Structures on their way to Earth to invade and destroy the planet. All communications have been lost to Earth so no warning can be made to save the planet, so someone must fly through the Structures with the message destroying as many alien ships as they can. You have been selected for this mission and you must fly your Cyberwing MK3 Mid-Range Fighter equipped with a forward firing cannon in this top view vertical scrolling shooter where the screen scrolls upwards constantly. As you fly, you must either shoot or avoid the aliens while also avoiding walls and lasers that turn on and off. If you hit any wall, laser or ship then you lose one of three lives but you are also equipped with five Mattersplatters that destroy anything on the screen.

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From Oldschool-Gaming.com :

Developed by 8-bit stalwarts Cosine Systems, Cyberwing is a vertically scrolling space shooter. Apparently, so the story goes, alien type scum have destroyed human colonies on their march towards Earth. It's up to you to make the perilous journey to Earth in your remote controlled Cyberwing Mk 3 Mid-Range Fighter (armed only with standard issue plasma cannons and "particle disseminator destructors") and warn of the impending danger, taking out as many enemy craft as possible on the way.

Gameplay is extremely straightforward. Use your joystick to move your spacecraft around the screen, whilst avoiding the scenery and enemy bullets. Destroy absolutely everything that moves with your cannons, which are activated by pressing the fire button or use a smart bomb weapon to destroy everything on the screen simultaneously by pressing the spacebar. Begin with three lives, but earn extra as you progress and in the meantime, rack up as many points as possible.

Cyberwing is well presented; a vibrantly shaded Cyberwing logo, hi-score table, credits, scrolling message (containing the game story and obligatory hellos) and an option for choosing in-game music or sound effects, makes up the title screen. Add to this simple but melodic title music and already you have something more entertaining than many shooters out there, old or new.

Pressing fire starts the game. In all honesty, I prefer the "heroic" sounding start tune and accompanying militaristic-sounding in-game tune, than the somewhat limp sound effects. The game graphics are well drawn overall, ultra smooth scrolling backdrops escort slickly animated enemy "ships", which swirl around the play area effortlessly in easy to remember, but occasionally tricky-to-avoid patterns. Everything hangs together superbly; the difficulty curve is set to a suitable level and, most importantly for a game of this type in my opinion, the collision detection between objects is generous in your favour. How many times before, when playing other space shooters, have you felt aggrieved by the fact that the bullet of your enemy clearly missed your spaceship by at least two pixels and yet your vessel joyfully exploded into a zillion tiny pieces? No such problem exists in Cyberwing! All is fair in this game. Your craft can even venture over a few pixels of landscape without any fear of being destroyed
